Help! Need to be taught how to add javascript to a page to make it more appealing

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Firstly, I would suggest that a Photoshop PSD file may be used in the creative process of designing a layout, but is not suitable for building the site. Furthermore, Dreamweaver is cumbersome and writes crap code. So unless you can pay someone else to build it for you, you could either:

- Use a CMS (like Wordpress) if you are not technically minded (or simply have better things to do with your time). This will have add-ons that can animate things for you.

- Learn how to build a web site from scratch. To do that, use the W3Schools tutorials on HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They will teach you the basics of what you need to know.

PS Javascript is not the only way to add animation! Leaving aside flash animations and videos:

a) Some simple "animation" effects can be achieved with the "hover" property of anchors.

b) Good old-fashioned animated GIFs can be an effective way of adding animation (if used sparingly). To include a GIF animation in a page you just need to use <img> tags, exactly like a static JPEG. If you've got Dreamweaver, then you probably have Fireworks as well. You can build animated GIFs with that (or any of the many freebie GIF builders).

c) Then there are the tasty animation functions in HTML5/CSS3 to consider...

If you have an idea of what you would want a button to do, then we can help with bits of code but as far as saying you want something that looks good... well, that's far too vague. Assuming you want to do it yourself, I'd say learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript and if you want to do server-side programming, PHP. I've never been a fan of Dreamweaver and have very little experience with it as I use either NetBeans or Notepad++ for my scripting. If you're in a hurry, then check out Wordpress as it's the friendlist CMS site I've used and has excellent support and integration with other sites and features.

There are various sites that will generate portions of CSS for you, so you just point, click and choose what you want. If I don't have a CSS animation already created, I use these sites to generate CSS animations, such as an animation to run when a file is loading.

Firstly, I would suggest that a Photoshop PSD file may be used in the creative process of designing a layout, but is not suitable for building the site.

it is acceptable to use most, if not all, elements of an image-based layout for website design. it should be noted that optimizing of such layouts to improve load times, usability, and bandwidth usage is highly recommended.

Originally Posted by jedaisoul

Furthermore, Dreamweaver is cumbersome and writes crap code. So unless you can pay someone else to build it for you, you could either

dreamweaver works great for an editor in spite of the fact that 90% of the "features" in dreamweaver are useless for veteran webdevs like me.

Originally Posted by jedaisoul

- Use a CMS (like Wordpress) if you are not technically minded (or simply have better things to do with your time). This will have add-ons that can animate things for you.

a cms is not a very elegant solution.

Originally Posted by jedaisoul

- Learn how to build a web site from scratch. To do that, use the W3Schools tutorials on HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They will teach you the basics of what you need to know.

PS Javascript is not the only way to add animation! Leaving aside flash animations and videos:

correct. the use of flash has been made obsolete by html5.

Originally Posted by jedaisoul

a) Some simple "animation" effects can be achieved with the "hover" property of anchors.

b) Good old-fashioned animated GIFs can be an effective way of adding animation (if used sparingly). To include a GIF animation in a page you just need to use <img> tags, exactly like a static JPEG. If you've got Dreamweaver, then you probably have Fireworks as well. You can build animated GIFs with that (or any of the many freebie GIF builders).

c) Then there are the tasty animation functions in HTML5/CSS3 to consider...

CSS3 offers much in the the way of animation. broadly speaking... you may find that you might use some, if not all, of these different methods to support a wide variety of web browsers.